Legacy names for a taxon

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1

I would like to keep track of all of the legacy names associated with a taxon. These would include old generic combinations, invalid emendations, misspellings, etc. The documentation I’ve found suggests using the alternative name field in the Determination, but I want to do this independently of any specimens. Is there any existing structure to do this, or will I need to use something like one of the text fields in Taxon Attribute?

As background, I’ve been working for some time from an implementation of the ASC information model. In that, the Taxonomic Concept seems to correlate with Specify’s Taxon. Then, ASC’s Taxon Name would store the strings used as names for a concept in a many to one relationship, with one of those strings being flagged as the currently accepted name for the concept. Are there parallels in Specify.

I’m using Specify 7 Version v.7.11.3

Norm

2

@baeus2 If you want to track these names independently of specimens, it’ll have to be done via taxon, most likely taxonAttribute as you suggest, but you may also be able to co-opt taxonCitation for this. Where you run into potential trouble is in the synonymy relationship you seem to want. That does not exist in Specify’s data model, at least not in a way it did in the ASC schema. Others may have different advice for you, but in my opinion you have the following options:

  1. Store names as static text in taxonAttribute and/or taxonCitation records linked to the currently accepted name. You would not be able to easily swap these fields to the accepted taxon when new combinations arise, they would need to be examined / queried through the synonymy itself, which is cumbersome. But, if you want to store old names for bibliographic purposes and don’t want them to be usable as determinations, I think this is your only option to do so within Specify. Crucially, the way names work in specify means one cannot simply “move” a species name from one genus to another without altering all existing determinations linked to that combination. You need to create a new record for the epithet in the correct genus when a combination changes and manually synonymize the nodes in the tree by pointing and clicking.

  2. Use the verbatimDetermination or alternativeName field in individual determination records to record a name not in the tree. Store all mispellings/old combinations that are not used directly in your collection in an external system. (This is what I do).

  3. You can store all names regardless of availability/validity/spelling in the Taxon tree and use the synonymize tool to ensure that they link hierarchically (as in, in ordered chains of nomenclatural priority) to the currently accepted name. This is a lot of manual work and has issues, which I describe below.

In my opinion, Specify just doesn’t have a great model for storing zoological nomenclatural information in highly structured ways like a global species database (for example, WoRMS) can.
I think one of the reasons is that there is no baked-in understanding of ICZN rules in the way the taxon tree in Specify is set up (because, of course, Specify’s data model must work with ICZN, ICN, and whatever naming convention the rockhounds use for minerals) To give one example, nominotypical subspecies can exist independently of their species in Specify’s taxon tree, and there’s no mechanism for acknowledging that both the nominotypical trinomial and the binomial can both be valid forms of a name. In the Aphia platform that WoRMS runs on, alternative representations are allowed.

I’m sure some collections have implemented extremely convoluted nomenclature in their trees, but I personally don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze when there are external options available that are purpose built for nomenclature.

Specify is primarily built for managing physical specimens and tracking the identifications of those objects through time. The Taxon tree is a means to that end, and trying to use specify as an authoritative bibliographic/nomenclatural database is ill advised.

Case in point – Storing huge numbers of old combinations, mispellings, etc. in specify that are not used for determinations in your collection only serves to slow down/clutter your tree, and additionally make it more likely that invalid names get applied to specimens in your collection accidentally. Notably, in picklists for the Taxon field in the main data entry form, there’s no indication of which name is currently accepted. If you have “N. johnsonii, N. jonsonii, B. johnsoni” in your picklist, you can only assess whether the name is accepted after the Determination has been saved by looking at the isCurrent field in the form. Limiting the number of possibilities to those which are “able to be used” prevents bad data from getting entered.

IMO, best practice is to maintain a rigid distinction between names that are published (and thus can be linked to Determinations) and names that are mistakes introduced on labels or in grey lit. In our DB, a name can be used as a determination if it was ever published, regardless of its validity under ICZN rules. I only include names in the tree that have been used as Determinations of specimens in the collection. I only add prior combinations if they were used for a specimen in the collection. I do not allow MS names or mispellings in the tree.